From this past Sunday's Gospel lesson
From the Gospel lesson this past Sunday: 17 Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” 18 But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? 19 Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. 20 And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” 21 They said, “Caesar's.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” 22 When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away (Matthew 22: 17-22).
Again, I find myself simply sharing the work of Fr. Paul D. Scalia from The Catholic Thing, this past Sunday. As the set up to the main lesson, Jesus asks whose image is on the coin of the realm. The answer being Caesar’s, it then belongs to Caesar.
“Well, if what bears Caesar’s image belongs to Caesar, then what bears God’s image must belong to God. Man, created in God’s image and likeness, belongs to God. He cannot be surrendered to the state. Thus, the truth, dignity, and rights of the human person establish the limits – and the purpose – of government authority. The Church requires not that public authorities legislate [Christian] doctrine and morals but that they govern according to the truth of the human person.
But when the state oversteps its limits and assumes an authority over the person that it doesn’t have. . .when it redefines marriage. . .when it rejects the reality of man and woman . . .when it butchers the innocent in the womb. . .when it violates freedom of religion – then Caesar has seized what rightly belongs to God. Then the Church’s shepherds have a responsibility to speak out, to defend the rights of God and the truth of man.
Some will cry foul and recite the old canards: Politics has no place in the pulpit. We should keep religion out of politics. Separation of church and state! Of course, nobody really believes those things. After all, a common criticism thrown at the Church is that her shepherds didn’t speak out enough against slavery, or Hitler, or segregation. And nobody excuses such silence with, “Well, politics has no place in the pulpit.”
But when the shepherds speak out against abortion, or the redefinition of marriage, or the trampling of religious freedom, they are not intruding into politics. They’re defending God’s rights against intrusive politicians. The right to life, the meaning of marriage, the reality of male and female – such things belong to God. We cannot cooperate in giving them to Caesar. When the Church speaks out on those matters, she is simply echoing the word of her divine Spouse: repay to God what belongs to God.
There is another, more personal, meaning of this verse. You belong to God, not to Caesar. You belong to prayer, not to politics. Yes, you should be informed and involved in politics – to a degree. But politics is not the only or even the most important thing. If you invest more time in politics than in prayer; if you read more about the upcoming elections than about your Lord; if you are more concerned about earthly rule than heavenly – then you have given to Caesar what belongs to God. Caesar has become your god.
The first way to defend the rights of God against incursions of the state is to make sure that you are living your life as one who belongs to him; to think more about his Kingdom than even our own country; to spend more time contemplating eternal truths than being tugged into what passes for news. When you place worship and service of the eternal God ahead of everything else, then you relativize the state’s authority and give what belongs to God”.